The Reign of the Brown Magician

Chapter Twenty-Five

“He can’t mean it,” Sheffield said.

“Why the hell not?” Albright demanded.

“I wish we knew more about him,” Markham said. “If we knew why he wanted the corpses…maybe we should send someone to Earth, to talk to people who knew him.”

Albright snorted. “Not that easy. We cut Earth off; they’ve no reason to cooperate, and they’ve got a guard on our warp site. We’d have to open a new one, and then our men would have to find some way to cross hundreds of miles of unfamiliar terrain without being noticed, find the right people to talk to without alerting the local government…”

“You don’t think they’d cooperate?” Markham asked.

“Why should they?” Albright said with a shrug.

“Given time, we might manage a mission such as you describe,” Celia Howe said. “But what good would it do? We couldn’t possibly get anything useful done before that twenty-four-hour deadline.”

The telepath in the corner cleared his throat, and all four faces turned toward him.

“His Imperial Majesty informs me,” the telepath said, “that we are to return this man’s family forthwith.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” Markham said, with visible relief.

“But does His Majesty understand that we cannot be sure what Brown intends…” Sheffield began.

“His Majesty understands quite enough,” the telepath said, cutting him off. “He also desires that we proffer a formal apology, and Secretary Sheffield is hereby recalled to Terra immediately.”

The others glanced at one another; they knew what this meant.

George VIII let his governments operate independently up to a point-but when his personal safety was threatened, that point had been passed.

Sheffield was ruined, at least temporarily; the Emperor would undoubtedly convene the Council and the Peerage and ask them to appoint a new government. And until they came up with one he liked he would run the Empire himself.

Whether Albright and Markham retained their posts…well, the Emperor hated doing the work of running the Empire himself. He would want a new government installed quickly. That meant as few cabinet changes as possible, and His Imperial Majesty might well instruct the legislature accordingly.

But on the other hand, Albright and Markham were involved in this interdimensional debacle, just as much as Sheffield was.

It was up to the Imperial whim.

Meanwhile, they had little choice but to obey orders as quickly and efficiently as possible. Albright stood up.

“Get me a messenger,” he said.

* * * *

The matrix twisted, and Pel almost fell. A space-warp had opened, one that was fairly close, and big enough to disturb the matrix noticeably.

It was, he quickly realized, in the same place as the second invasion.

He looked down at the forest below with something like regret; he had been enjoying his scenic tour of Faerie. The mountains ahead looked quite spectacular, and he was sure there was plenty more to be seen. He hadn’t yet come across more elves, nor any of the little people, the gnomes, as they were called, let alone their homeland of Hrumph.

Of course, Grummetty’s comments all those months ago had implied that Shadow had driven the gnomes out of Hrumph-they might have wound up on a reservation somewhere, the way the elves had.

There was so much Pel didn’t know.

For some time he had thought of Faerie as a narrow strip stretching from Shadowmarsh to the Low Forest, but now it had finally sunk in that it was an entire world.

Perhaps he and Nancy and Rachel could take a vacation here before returning to Earth, take a flying tour of the countryside. They couldn’t see all of it, of course-there was far too much, a world larger than the whole Earth-but they could roam about a bit.

For now, though, it was time to see whether the Empire had finally seen reason, or whether he would have to find a way to kill George VIII and hope that George IX, or whoever the next Emperor was, would be more sensible.

He wheeled about and headed back across the wooded hills, accelerating as he went.

Moments later he stumbled to a stop on the charred remains of a barley field, where two steel cylinders lay side by side, a sheet of paper atop one of them.

He picked up the paper and read, “With Our apologies for the delay, and hopes for cordial relations hereafter.” A blue seal adorned one corner. The signature was done with something like a rubber stamp and was slightly blurred, but still decipherable-Georgius VIII Imperator et Rex. An illegible scribble next to it was presumably the mark of the secretary who had stamped the document in accordance with Imperial instructions.

“Well, that’s more like it,” Pel said to no one, dropping the paper and turning to the cylinders.

His stomach was suddenly trembling inside him, his knees unsteady.

The cylinders were cold to the touch. Each was held closed by two complex screwed-down latches of some sort; Pel spun the flywheel of each latch on the nearer container and pried open the complicated hooks.

He felt as if he might faint, and his hands were cold, and not just from the cold metal. He was sweating. At last, at long last, he had his wife and daughter back.

Either that, or the Empire was in for unrelieved hell, if this should prove to be some other stupid delay.

He lifted the lid, not breathing, and looked inside.

For a moment he thought that it was some sort of trick, that they had substituted some ghastly thing for his wife; then he realized he was wrong.

This thing was Nancy.

She was naked, but so battered and horrific that that hardly mattered. Her skin was pale and discolored, a sickly grayish hue, and large areas were flaking or peeling, as if her skin were badly weathered paint. Her belly was a ruin of blackened, torn meat-the pirates had shot her in the gut with a blaster at point-blank range. She was half-frozen, still stiff, lying in a puddle of condensation.

One of her legs was cracked, exposing bone and flesh; Pel supposed it had happened while she was frozen.

And three fingers were gone from her right hand, but a moment later Pel spotted them, little shrivelled pink things lying by her hip.

And her face…part of the skin was gone from around her left eye, and her right cheekbone was caved in; a huge purple bruise had apparently formed before death. Her eyes were wide open and staring.

But it was Nancy.

Pel stepped back and sat down abruptly to keep from falling. He felt sick and faint.

He had never thought about what she would look like. He had thought of her looking as if she were asleep.

He should have known better. Especially after some of the things he had seen since-the disembowelled bodies hanging from gibbets in Shadow’s empire, the blackened remnants of Shadow’s enemies, the corpses he had resurrected himself, the Imperial troops he had killed himself-he should certainly have known better.

He put his head down and took deep, slow breaths, and tried not to think about her appearance.

After a minute or two he felt better-still sick, but fairly sure he wouldn’t faint or vomit.

He didn’t look at Nancy again; instead he went to the other cylinder and opened the latches.

He hesitated, however, before lifting the lid.

No one had said how Rachel had died. He knew she had died on Zeta Leo III, at the hands of the slave-owners there, but only that. Nancy had been beaten, raped, and murdered by the pirates on Emerald Princess; Rachel’s death was a mystery.

He had to be prepared for the worst.

He took a deep breath, then opened the cylinder and looked in.

It wasn’t as bad.

She was wrapped in dirty white cloth from her shoulders to her knees, and whatever might be hidden by the cloth, Pel wasn’t interested in seeing. There were no bloodstains, nothing obviously broken or missing; her eyes were closed. Although she was plainly dead, so pale and lifeless that no one would ever mistake her for a living child, she showed no signs of whatever had killed her. There were a few bruises, though, and her face was smudged with dirt. Bits of dirt clung to her hair, as well, and more dirt was smeared across the cloth…

She had been buried, Pel realized. That was why it had taken the Imperial task force so long to find her. They had found her and dug her up and brought her back to Base One after someone, probably her killer, had buried her.

Buried her without a coffin, obviously-just wrapped in an improvised shroud.

Had whoever it was been trying to do the right thing? Or had the killer just been disposing of the evidence?

It didn’t matter; all that mattered was that Pel had her back.

He reached down and touched her.

Her skin was cold and dead-very cold. Like Nancy, she had apparently been frozen, or at least refrigerated.

Pel shuddered and withdrew his hand, and the motion jarred the corpse; Rachel’s head rolled slightly to one side, and Pel saw the purple finger marks on her neck and knew how she had died.

But that was past. She was here now, in a world where magic worked, and her father, who had done nothing to save her when she was alive, would bring her back to life.

He closed the lid and screwed down the latches, then did the same for the other cylinder. A moment later he was airborne, the cylinders following him northward through the sky, toward Shadowmarsh and Shadow’s fortress, where Shadow’s magic would restore them all.

* * * *

John Bascombe leaned back and smiled. The news had spread like wildfire, like the shock wave of a supernova-the Empire had yielded to the Brown Magician’s demands. The war was over, and the Empire had come out second-best. Sheffield had been recalled to Earth. A new government would be formed.

And John Bascombe, Under-Secretary for Interdimensional Affairs, was pretty sure that Sheffield would take the others down with him-Markham and Albright and Hart and all the rest of them.

But not him. Not John Bascombe. Because he’d been cut out of everything, shunted off to the side; none of what had happened was his fault.

Or at least, none of it could be pinned on him, and that was what counted.

And with Markham and the rest surely doomed, that would mean opportunities for advancement. He might not be the new Secretary of Science, but he thought he ought to be able to move up a notch or two. Perhaps General Under-Secretary of Science? Imperial Advisor on Science?

He was musing pleasantly on the various possibilities when the door of his office burst open and two men stepped in, blasters drawn.

They wore the purple and gold of the Imperial Guard. Bascombe sat up suddenly and stared.

“John Bascombe?” one of them asked.

“Uh,” Bascombe said.

“John Bascombe, you are under arrest, by order of His Imperial Majesty, George VIII.”

“Uh,” Bascombe said again, staring.

How could he be under arrest? And it wasn’t just Sheffield or the others taking a last-minute revenge-the Imperial Guard didn’t take orders from anyone but the Emperor and their own officers.

They didn’t ordinarily leave Terra at all-the Emperor must have sent them here especially. It must be a full-scale purge, Bascombe realized.

But he hadn’t done anything wrong! Oh, he had intrigued a little, hidden a few little mishaps, but he hadn’t done anything wrong, he hadn’t been one of Sheffield’s people…

“What…” he said, mouth dry. “What charge?”

“Treason,” the guardsman said.

And Bascombe knew that whatever happened, whether he lived or died, was acquitted or convicted, that with a treason charge on his record, even if it was dismissed as a mistake, he was never, ever going to be Secretary of Science.

* * * *

Pel brought the cylinders through the front gate, up the great staircase to the throne room, where some of the inhabitants of the fortress were awaiting his return.

He didn’t pay much attention.

He knew, in a vague, detached sort of way, that he had been awake and active for far too long. He had spent most of the day that was ending in the air, riding the winds hither and yon; he had spent the night before carving wooden message-boards and sending them through portals into the Empire. And that had followed the day in which he located and destroyed the Empire’s second attempted invasion.

And he hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours or more.

He hadn’t eaten anything but a bite or two of corned beef in weeks.

He was letting the matrix support him-and it was doing so, so that he still wasn’t physically tired, but he knew he ought to sleep, he knew that he wasn’t thinking clearly any shy;more. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t safe.

But he had the bodies, at last. He had the bodies. He had his family back.

He looked up and saw Susan Nguyen standing in the doorway, and he smiled. There she was, the proof that he could restore the dead.

But of course, he would have to repair the bodies first, Nancy’s especially.

And there was the false Nancy now, standing at Susan’s side, and she could serve him as a model.

“Come here,” he called, “both of you!”

* * * *

“Did you, or did you not, order an officer of the Imperial Intelligence Service to arrest one Pellinore Brown, also known as Pelbrun the Brown Magician?” the presiding officer of the court-Bascombe wasn’t sure just what the correct title was, or for that matter what the exact nature of this hearing was-demanded.

No one worried about telling the accused such unnecessary details in an affair like this.

“I don’t know,” Bascombe said. “Did I? Why does it matter?”

The judge, if that was what he was, sat back in his chair. “Pellinore Brown,” he said, “is a reigning head of state. To order his arrest is an act of war. To commit an act of war against a friendly nation in the Empire’s name is an act of treason. Now, do you deny issuing that order?”

Bascombe glanced at the silent young woman sitting in the corner of the room. “What difference does it make? You’ve got a telepath there; you know whether I did it better than I know myself.”

“We would prefer to have your own words on the record.”

“I don’t remember whether I issued such an order,” Bascombe said, truthfully. “I may have. I wasn’t aware that the Empire had recognized Pellinore Brown as a head of state, or that his nation was a friendly one. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a friendly nation.”

The judge glanced at the woman, who nodded.

Bascombe watched the judge’s face, and thought he saw something there, something that might have been a trace of disappointment.

And John Bascombe suppressed a sigh of relief; he was fairly sure that that disappointment meant that at least so far, his answers had not condemned him to death.

* * * *

At last, when he had been unable to organize the matrix currents properly to repair Nancy’s intestines despite three attempts, Pel gave up and found a bed.

He awoke with no idea how long he had slept, and no interest in finding out; he returned immediately to the throne room, to resume work on the bodies.

It took hours; the damage to Nancy’s body was extensive, severe, and often subtle. Tissues had been burned, frozen, dehydrated, attacked in dozens of ways, and everything had to be perfect.

He took a break every so often; he didn’t want to risk screwing anything up through fatigue.

At last, though, he had them both ready, the bodies repaired but lifeless.

They weren’t going to stay lifeless, though; at long last, he was about to raise them both from the dead.

And Nancy would be first.

* * * *

“They’re in chaos,” Miletti said. “The Emperor’s royally pissed off by the whole affair. He’s convinced the whole thing should have been turned over to the spies right from the start, that the military and the scientists had no business keeping it to themselves and that his Prime Minister or General Secretary or whatever he’s called should have known better.”

“And how’s this affect us?” Johnston asked.

Miletti shrugged.

“They don’t care about us,” Miletti said.

Then he added as an afterthought, “At least, not yet they don’t.”

* * * *

Nancy’s eyes opened, and she stared upward for a fraction of a second; then she closed them, tight, and flung an arm across them protectively.

“The matrix,” Susan suggested. “She’s never seen it before.”

Pel had forgotten that; he quickly fought down the glow, reduced it to a dim flickering, no brighter than a few candles. He was relieved that he had allowed Susan to stay when he sent all the others away; he had become so accustomed to the matrix, and to his own immunity to its brilliance, that he might not have identified the problem for a minute or two, and he didn’t want to waste even a second.

He remembered how the simulacrum had reacted when she first awoke; if this one did the same thing then he would know he had failed, and it would all be over.

“Nancy?” he said.

The eyes opened again, the arm lifted, and she looked up at his worried face. She looked at the beard, at the unkempt long hair, and then at his eyes.

She blinked, and stared into his eyes for a long moment.

“Pel?” she said at last, and the Brown Magician smiled the most wonderful smile of his life.